SiliconBeathttp://www.siliconbeat.com
What's next in techMon, 05 Feb 2018 13:00:26 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.839179666SiliconBeat is movinghttp://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/02/05/siliconbeat-is-moving/
http://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/02/05/siliconbeat-is-moving/#commentsMon, 05 Feb 2018 13:00:26 +0000http://www.siliconbeat.com/?p=135446SiliconBeat is moving! We will continue to blog about tech news as usual, but from now on you can find our posts at MercuryNews.com/SiliconBeat. This site will continue to house our old blog posts, but we will no longer be posting new content here. Please continue to read tech news and analysis at our new home, and sign up for our Good Morning Silicon Valley newsletter to get the latest news in your inbox each morning. Thank you.
]]>http://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/02/05/siliconbeat-is-moving/feed/2SiliconBeatBerkeley's city council will decide Sept. 18 whether U-Haul on San Pablo Avenue is a public nuisance and should be closed. Neighbors have complained for years about trucks parked on city streets. (BANG archives)135446Uber and Lyft want you banned from using your own self-driving car in urban areashttp://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/02/02/uber-and-lyft-want-you-banned-from-using-your-own-self-driving-car-in-a-big-city/
http://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/02/02/uber-and-lyft-want-you-banned-from-using-your-own-self-driving-car-in-a-big-city/#commentsSat, 03 Feb 2018 01:00:12 +0000http://www.siliconbeat.com/?p=135458The rabble can’t be trusted with self-driving cars, and only companies operating fleets of them should be able to use them in dense urban areas.

So say Uber and Lyft, as signatories to a new list of transportation goals developed by a group of international non-governmental organizations and titled “Shared Mobility Principles for Livable Cities.”

Long-considered a futuristic dream, self-driving cars are quickly moving toward widespread deployment, with many companies testing them on California public roads and Google spin-off Waymo planning to launch public ride-sharing with self-driving minivans in Phoenix this year.

In the list of 10 shared-mobility principles, bland generalities predominate — “stakeholder engagement” for example, is considered important — but the groups responsible clearly saved the best for last: According to Principle No. 10, the signatories — which also include other companies involved in transportation as a service — agree that autonomous vehicles in “dense urban areas” should only be operated in fleets.

Get tech news in your inbox weekday mornings. Sign up for the free Good Morning Silicon Valley newsletter.

In language reminiscent of the Second Amendment, Principle No. 10 says it’s “critical” that all self-driving vehicles are “part of shared fleets, well-regulated, and zero emission.”

Here’s why you, dear reader, ought not to be allowed to toodle around downtown San Francisco or central San Jose (or probably anywhere in between if the ride-hailing giants had their druthers) in your own self-driving car, according to Principle No. 10:

“Shared fleets can provide more affordable access to all, maximize public safety and emissions benefits, ensure that maintenance and software upgrades are managed by professionals.”

Photo: A vehicle with both Lyft and Uber windshield decals is parked Monday afternoon Dec. 14, 2015, near Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

The flamboyant tech tycoon has apparently raised $10 million in pre-orders for the $500 flamethrowers, sold via Musk’s The Boring Company, which is dedicated to solving traffic problems by moving vehicles through tunnels underground.

Truth be told, the flamethrower, as shown spouting a paltry couple feet of flame in a video, appears to resemble a roofer’s torch or weed burner much more closely than it does the weapon used for burning people to death since the First World War.

Get tech news in your inbox weekday mornings. Sign up for the free Good Morning Silicon Valley newsletter.

Elon Musk’s The Boring Company “flamethrower” (The Boring Company)

Perhaps to console buyers disappointed by their inability to commit mass murder using an implement peddled by the Legendary Elon, each Boring Company flamethrower will feature its own serial number, according to Musk.

However, Musk on Feb. 2 suggested that in spite of the flamethrowers’ limited range, some border authorities have reservations about passing them through.

“Apparently, some customs agencies are saying they won’t allow shipment of anything called a ‘Flamethrower,’ Musk tweeted.

While either moniker would no doubt be much more accurate than “flamethrower,” a name change may not deter California Assemblyman Miguel Santiago, D-Los Angeles, who has embarked on a crusade against Musk’s Promethean move to bring fire to the people.

Here’s Santiago’s take: “Absolutely no public good could come from the sale of this tool.”

The flamethrowers are supposed to start shipping in the spring, according to The Boring Company, which, to be fair, has not marketed the device as an apparatus for torching hapless humans, but instead has described it as the “world’s safest flamethrower.”

Photo: An actual M-2 flamethrower, demonstrated by U.S. Marines. (Courtesy U.S. Marine Corps)

Rob Bliss called his protest “Restoring Automotive Freedom at The FCC,” a dig at the title of Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s repeal plan — Restoring Internet Freedom — which was approved in a partisan 3-2 vote in December.

Bliss throttled vehicle traffic by blocking two lanes with orange cones, then riding his bike really slowly in the remaining open lane while wearing a sign on his back that said “Ask me about our 12th Street $5 a Month Priority Access Plan!”

Get tech news in your inbox weekday mornings. Sign up for the free Good Morning Silicon Valley newsletter.

His protest — it’s on YouTube, of course, and it was stopped by the cops after three days — is just another example that net neutrality, the principle that all online traffic should be treated equally, has come a long way toward becoming a mainstream issue.

“I couldn’t even have dreamed three years ago that Burger King would put out a net neutrality ad,” said Gigi Sohn, former counselor to former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, in an interview with this news organization this week. Sohn, who is also a Mozilla fellow and a distinguished fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy, added: “This is a thing, and it’s not going away.”

But the rules to prevent internet service providers from slowing down traffic, or charging more for certain online content, are supposed to be going away, unless legislation or legal action can repeal the repeal.

There’s an effort underway in Congress to overturn the FCC’s vote by invoking the Congressional Review Act. The Senate needs just one more vote to pass it; the House version has the support of about 130 lawmakers and needs more. The FCC is already facing a few lawsuits, including from California and 21 other states.

And speaking of states, the California State Senate this week approved a bill that would establish net neutrality laws for the Golden State. The bill, by Sen. Kevin de Leon (Sen. Scott Wiener also has a bill), now goes to the State Assembly.

Montana and New York already have their own state net neutrality rules, recently imposed by their governors’ executive orders.

Meanwhile, people like Bliss are keeping the issue front and center. He earned kudos on Twitter from Tim Berners-Lee, widely known as the father of the World Wide Web.

Photo: An activist protests the FCC plan to repeal net neutrality rules outside the Verizon store in Walnut Creek, Calif., on Thursday, Dec. 7, 2017. The protests continue: In Washington this week, a bicyclist held up vehicle traffic in front of FCC offices. (Anda Chu/Bay Area News Group)

]]>http://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/02/02/net-neutrality-battle-bicyclist-slows-real-traffic-protest-california-bill-advances/feed/0SiliconBeatAn activist protests along with about 20 others a possible plan by the FCC to repeal net neutrality rules established under President Obama outside the Verizon store in Walnut Creek, Calif., on Thursday, Dec. 7, 2017. In a vote next week the FCC is widely expected to undo the regulations that have prohibited internet service providers from establishing fast and slow lanes online and preferring certain content over others. (Anda Chu/Bay Area News Group)135433Tesla Model 3s now on display at San Jose’s Santana Row and in Walnut Creekhttp://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/02/02/tesla-model-3s-now-on-display-at-san-joses-santana-row-and-in-walnut-creek/
http://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/02/02/tesla-model-3s-now-on-display-at-san-joses-santana-row-and-in-walnut-creek/#commentsFri, 02 Feb 2018 18:29:21 +0000http://www.siliconbeat.com/?p=135434Though the number of Tesla Model 3s in the wild is slowly rising, people interested in getting up close and even inside the electric vehicle have two more places to find it on display the Bay Area.

Tesla had chosen this region as one of two locations where it first put the Model 3 on display in a showroom, at Palo Alto’s Stanford Shopping Center and in Los Angeles on Jan. 12.

The move was intended as the first step in a gradual rollout to Tesla showrooms across the country. And that rollout has now brought the Model 3 — Tesla’s bid for the mass market — to the Santana Row shopping complex in San Jose, and to its showroom at the Broadway Plaza shopping center in Walnut Creek.

Get tech news in your inbox weekday mornings. Sign up for the free Good Morning Silicon Valley newsletter.

The Model 3 starts at $35,000, but production of the car has suffered from delays, and Tesla is first manufacturing a $50,000 version with a longer-range battery said to allow the sedan to travel an estimated 310 miles on a charge, compared to 210 miles for the basic car.

According to Tesla, nearly half a million people have reserved Model 3s. But stated delivery targets have been twice delayed, and only a few thousand Model 3s at most have been put into owners’ hands. Tesla claims success in resolving production “bottlenecks,” however, and its most-recent target was to produce 5,000 of the vehicles per week by the end of June.

Auto-industry analyst George Peterson of research firm AutoPacific has attributed the Model 3 delays to Tesla biting off a lot to chew. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has in recent months promised an electric semi in 2019, a new and fantastically speedy version of its electric Roadster in 2020, a “Model Y” compact SUV tentatively scheduled to go into production in mid-2019, and a new electric pickup truck coming, according to Musk, “right after” the Model Y.

Each of the Bay Area locations where the Model 3 is displayed has one of the cars, and Tesla plans to keep the vehicles in its showrooms for the foreseeable future.

Photo: People check out the Tesla Model 3, at the electric sedan’s first appearance in a Tesla showroom, on Friday, Jan. 12 at Stanford ShoppingCenter in Palo Alto. (Ethan Baron/Bay Area News Group)

]]>http://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/02/02/tesla-model-3s-now-on-display-at-san-joses-santana-row-and-in-walnut-creek/feed/4SiliconBeatPeople check out the Tesla Model 3, at the electric sedan’s first
appearance in a Tesla showroom, on Friday, Jan. 12 at Stanford Shopping
Center in Palo Alto, Calif. (Ethan Baron/Bay Area News Group)135434Off topic: Jack the Ripper, how Americans live, photos from Mars, Mardi Gras beadshttp://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/02/02/off-topic-jack-ripper-americans-live-photos-mars-mardi-gras-beads/
http://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/02/02/off-topic-jack-ripper-americans-live-photos-mars-mardi-gras-beads/#respondFri, 02 Feb 2018 13:52:06 +0000http://www.siliconbeat.com/?p=135416New study boosts theory that Jack the Ripper letters were fake news. How Americans live, sortable by age, gender, race. An In Focus look at images from Curiosity’s 2,000 days on Mars. And where do 46 tons of beads go after Mardi Gras? They clog up New Orleans storm drains.

Photo: Red and gold Mardi Gras beads are seen near Super Bowl Boulevard near Woldenberg Park before Super Bowl XLVII, which pitted the San Francisco 49ers against the Baltimore Ravens on Feb. 3, 2013, at the Superdome in New Orleans. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)

]]>http://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/02/02/off-topic-jack-ripper-americans-live-photos-mars-mardi-gras-beads/feed/0THE OAKLAND TRIBUNE/BAY AREA NEWS GROUPRed and gold Mardi Gras beads are seen near Super Bowl Boulevard near Woldenberg Park before Super Bowl XLVII against the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday, Feb. 3, 2013, at the Superdome in New Orleans. Locals are calling referring to this week as "Super Gras," as Mardi Gras season and the Super Bowl coincide. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)135416Tesla car-racing series gets go-ahead from Formula 1 overseer, promoter sayshttp://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/02/01/tesla-car-racing-series-gets-go-ahead-from-formula-1-overseer/
http://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/02/01/tesla-car-racing-series-gets-go-ahead-from-formula-1-overseer/#commentsThu, 01 Feb 2018 19:18:40 +0000http://www.siliconbeat.com/?p=135402The prospect of an all-Tesla auto-racing series just got a lot closer to reality with approval by the group that oversees Formula 1 racing, according to a race promoter. And as an added bonus, the events will reportedly feature competitive “drifting,” in which cars slide at high speed through turns.

The governing body of auto racing, the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), approved the series, which is scheduled to start this year and feature souped-up versions of Tesla’s Model S sedan, said the Electric GT organization, which proposed and promoted the competition.

Get tech news in your inbox weekday mornings. Sign up for the free Good Morning Silicon Valley newsletter.

Paving the way for the series’ approval was passage by the customized P100D in the official FIA crash test, according to Electric GT.

The series will follow a three-heat qualifying format, and include a 60-kilometer day race and a dusk race of equal length, the promoter said.

“An innovative ‘Drift Off’ competition will also take place at suitable circuits, where fans will see the top two finishing drivers plus two fan-voted drivers go head-to-head to complete a series of drifting challenges to secure three further championship points,” said Electric GT, an event organizer that looks forward to “The Age of Light, when all our energy needs will come directly from the sun, and will be stored for us to use freely day and night.”

For the Tesla racing series, there’s a cap on horsepower. But that maximum, 778 horsepower, approaches the power level of a Formula 1 race car.

Electric GT first proposed an all-Tesla race two years ago, and had been seeking to use the discontinued Tesla Model S P85+, according to tech website The Verge.

Today, the Electric Production Car Series is intended to become a venue for car makers to pit their best-performing electric vehicles against each other, The Verge reported Feb. 1.

“Since there is a dearth of performance electric cars at the moment, though, the series is starting with Teslas,” according to the site.

]]>http://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/02/01/tesla-car-racing-series-gets-go-ahead-from-formula-1-overseer/feed/1SiliconBeatAn Electric GT race-ready Tesla Model S P100D (courtesy of Electric GT)135402Twitter notified 1.4 million users who interacted with Russian-linked accountshttp://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/02/01/twitter-notified-1-4-million-users-interacted-russian-linked-accounts/
http://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/02/01/twitter-notified-1-4-million-users-interacted-russian-linked-accounts/#commentsThu, 01 Feb 2018 18:55:42 +0000http://www.siliconbeat.com/?p=135400Twitter notified 1.4 million people in the United States who interacted with accounts connected to the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency during the 2016 presidential election.

The tech firm initially said it would be alerting 677,775 U.S. users, but on Wednesday it expanded that number.

“Our notice efforts are focused on certain types of interactions, and they will not encompass every person that ever saw this content,” Twitter said in a blog post.

Get tech news in your inbox weekday mornings. Sign up for the free Good Morning Silicon Valley newsletter.

The company has been under pressure by U.S. lawmakers to alert its users if they were potentially exposed to Russian propaganda. Russian officials denied meddling in the 2016 presidential election, but social media companies discovered Russian-linked accounts that posted divisive content during the 2016 election season.

Twitter notified users who followed, retweeted, quoted, replied to, mentioned, or liked content from 3,814 Russian-linked accounts. The company also said it also e-mailed people who opted out of receiving most email updates, which expanded the number of notifications it sent out.

Some Twitter users who received a notification from the company didn’t find the information extremely helpful. Others questioned whether the company was trying to silence conservatives.

Got my Russian propaganda e-mail from Twitter this morning. I never bought into the pro-Trump stuff, so I guess it must’ve been some pro-Bernie stuff. I wish it gave more details, such as which accounts or tweets I interacted with.

Twitter, which has 330 million monthly active users worldwide, said it’s surveying a small group of people to get feedback about the notifications.

“Our goal in providing these notifications is to advance public awareness of and engagement with the important issues raised in our blog post, and provide greater transparency to our account holders and the public,” the company said in the blog post.

Photo: The Twitter building on Dec. 14, 2015, in San Francisco. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

]]>http://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/02/01/twitter-notified-1-4-million-users-interacted-russian-linked-accounts/feed/1SiliconBeat135400Sorry, Elon Musk has no more flamethrowers to sell youhttp://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/02/01/sorry-elon-musk-no-flamethrowers-sell/
http://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/02/01/sorry-elon-musk-no-flamethrowers-sell/#commentsThu, 01 Feb 2018 18:17:24 +0000http://www.siliconbeat.com/?p=135395That was quick: Elon Musk sold out all his totally serious flamethrowers in five days.

Last weekend, Musk opened up pre-orders for 20,000 flamethrowers on The Boring Company’s website. The flamethrowers cost $500, and the flamethrowers netted Musk — whose net worth is $21 billion, according to Forbes — $10 million more.

After he sold out, Musk announced that all flamethrower pre-orders will come with a complimentary fire extinguisher, courtesy of The Boring Co.

Get tech news in your inbox weekday mornings. Sign up for the free Good Morning Silicon Valley newsletter.

Musk and his legions are still chortling over the idea of selling flamethrowers online — but some politicians are not laughing.

Santiago said he became outraged by Musk selling flamethrowers after reading an article from this news organization on the topic while stuck in Los Angeles traffic.

“I honestly thought it was a joke when the article was read to me,” said Santiago. “Joke or not, this subject matter, in the wake of the state’s deadliest wildfires in history, is incredibly insensitive, dangerous, and most definitely not funny. Absolutely no public good could come from the sale of this tool.”

A spokesperson for The Boring Co. told this news organization Sunday that the flamethrowers could be sold without needing a permit from the California Fire Marshal because the flames emit less than 10 feet.

California and Maryland are the only two states in the nation with regulations against owning a flamethrower.

In the United Kingdom, the Home Office — a government ministry responsible for internal affairs and security in the country — warned that flamethrowers are prohibited and that it is illegal for those under 18 to buy any “imitation firearm,” according to the Guardian.

Musk said in a tweet Thursday that the 20,000 flamethrowers will have a serial number from 1 to 20,000 to commemorate their exclusivity. The flamethrower will be shipped in spring, according to The Boring Co.

Keeping up the levity, Musk said he was considering a different thrower.

“A snowthrower would be really fun,” tweeted Musk in response to an Australian who requested a snowthrower to cool down in his home country.

Photo: Tesla CEO Elon Musk, center, with CTO J.B. Straubel, left, and Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen as the company launched the Model S at its factory in Fremont on June 22, 2012. (Patrick Tehan/Mercury News)

]]>http://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/02/01/sorry-elon-musk-no-flamethrowers-sell/feed/4SJMN135395EBay, PayPal head in different directions with divorce on taphttp://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/02/01/ebay-paypal-head-different-ways-divorce-tap/
http://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/02/01/ebay-paypal-head-different-ways-divorce-tap/#commentsThu, 01 Feb 2018 16:21:27 +0000http://www.siliconbeat.com/?p=135385EBay and PayPal are taking another step toward divorce. And as is the case in many such separations, one side is the winner and the other is left wondering just how things got to this point.

EBay said Wednesday that PayPal will no longer be its payments processor after the agreement between the two companies ends in 2020. EBay has signed a new, long-term deal with Dutch payments-services company Adyen, which will start handling a small amount of eBay’s payment processing later this year.

Adyen’s name may not be well-known in the United States, but the company does count Uber, Netflix and Spotify among the companies that use its technology for processing customer payments. Unlike PayPal, which in addition to providing payment services has a button on eBay sites and elsewhere so customers can use it to pay for purchases, Adyen focuses exclusively on the services that businesses use on the back end of their systems for payment processing.

Get tech news in your inbox weekday mornings. Sign up for the free Good Morning Silicon Valley newsletter.

PayPal won’t disappear completely from eBay in two years, however. The companies said PayPal will remain as a payment option on eBay’s Marketplace sites until 2023. EBay and PayPal have had close ties since 2003, when eBay acquired PayPal. In 2015, eBay spun out PayPal as an independent company.

But it was obvious from the start of trading on Thursday how Wall Street viewed the new relationship between eBay and PayPal.

EBay shares rose more than 15 percent, to as high as $46.75, as the company also got a boost from an upbeat fourth-quarter report and outlook. Late Wednesday, eBay reported fourth-quarter earnings of 59 cents a share on $2.61 billion in revenue, which was in line with analysts’ expectations. The company also forecast first-quarter earnings of between 52 cents and 54 cents a share, on revenue in a range of $2.57 billion and $2.61 billion, while Wall Street had earlier forecast eBay to earn 52 cents a share on sales of $2.4 billion.

In contrast to eBay, PayPal shares fell by 6.3 percent, to $79.98.

Photo: The sign at eBay headquarters in San Jose in 2013. EBay shares surged and PayPal’s retreated after eBay said it would stop using PayPal as its payments processor in 2020. (Gary Reyes/Bay Area News Group)

]]>http://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/02/01/ebay-paypal-head-different-ways-divorce-tap/feed/1San Jose Mercury NewsThe sign at eBay headquarters in San Jose, Calif. is photographed on Friday, April 19, 2013. The company has transformed itself from an online auction site into one of the most highly sought after technological partners for small and large retailers. (Gary Reyes/ Bay Area News Group)135385